Lothic

I think it's been well established (at least among players) that the "female MM pets could be considered sexist" argument has been dismissed as ridiculous. The only argument that actually makes a tiny bit of sense is that it would simply take too much time and effort to create a whole new set of female models for them. It'd be far easier for me to accept the idea that the Devs just don't think it's worth doing time/benefit wise than to think they have something against potential misogyny.

The fact that player characters can easily dress themselves up slutty and RP far more nasty things than what little Johnny can dream up with his female MM pets has always been laughable to me.

In an age when even catching a glimpse of a woman's uncovered -ankle- would have been considered risque the female outfit in question would have probably been considered what we consider full-on frontal nudity today. Sadly the only "historical equivalent" you'd ever see like that would likely be in a "house of ill repute".

Along this same line of reasoning I'm fairly convinced one of the many reasons people don't PvP in RV as much as they used to is that most of the people who care about badges got them long ago from that zone. The PvPers don't have as many "easy targets" as they used to. Clearly the effort to get a Portable Workbench "encouraged" lots of people to enter the market whether they really wanted to or not.

I guess next they'll have Shatner sing a song about that game.

I can confirm this with a little bit of empirical evidence:

Back before I got my new gaming computer I basically never zoned in quickly enough to "accidentally" get the league star. But since I got my new fairly-cutting edge machine a few months ago I now manage to get the star as I zone in like that maybe every third trial I do now. I think I can deal with that mild annoyance as a consequence of enjoying my new computer.

It's actually kind of funny that I'm sort of defending the TV show considering how much I've ripped on it in these forums. You should have seen how merciless I was on it last year during its first season.

That being said it's obvious that what makes for a decent TV show is going to be different than what makes for a good comicbook issue. The structure of the story has to conform to the type of media it's being presented on. In some ways I agree that there are elements to the TV show that are very clearly "shoe-horned in" just for the sake of trying to come up with something that fits nicely into one-hour segments. But I don't really see that as a particular failing of this show as much as the general limitation of what you can and can't do with a typical chunk of TV show time.

Are there things the comicbook did much better than the TV show? Of course there are. I would simply argue that conversely there are things the TV show has been able to do that they could never dream of in a comic book format.

I'm willing to give the next episode a chance to explain some of this "in-show". Remember we got left with a relatively big cliffhanger here. Who's to say how people are going to react as soon as people start talking again after the shooting.

Perhaps our disagreement here simply stems from just how much extra useful detail the TV show has provided in critical areas of the story. I've already implied that I think there are some areas of the TV show where things were strung out too long. For instance even though I know Sophia was not lost in the comic I think the "Sophia Lost" TV arc was probably about twice as long as it needed to be.

On the other hand I think at least some of the "stupidity-induced drama" you refer to was actually needed to fill in the logic gaps the comicbook left behind. To me it's almost like the comicbook has been a sort of "CliffsNotes" version to the TV show, which is weird considering the TV show is supposedly based off the comic.

Right. There was no indication that we were expanding that line of discussion to some of the other dumb things other people have done on the TV show.

The TV show better explained in a more satisfyingly dramatic way:

Rick's escape from the hospital.
Rick's encounter with Morgan and son.
Rick finding the group and their time near Atlanta.
The purpose of Shane as a dramatic foil to Rick. Shane lost his cool and got shot by Carl all in like one single page of the comic.
Carl getting shot by Otis was resolved in like just another page or two of the comic.
The zombie barn's discovery and resolution was handled in all the wink of an eye.

Basically the comic's format blows past most every opportunity the TV show has seized upon to have actual meaningful dramatic sequences worth caring about. I mean absolutely no disrespect to the writers of the comicbook but it really comes off as the best effort of the way a 12 year old might write such a story. One more time the TV show, for all it's faults, actually managed to flesh out many of the points in the comic that fairly lacking in the depth department. *shrugs*

In the comic they had opened the barn door with the idea that they were ready to toss the new one in. At that point the zombies took advantage of the situation and made a break for it. In the TV show Shane opened the door before Hershel and Rick even had a chance to toss the new ones in.

Since they knew Shane was threatening to open the door they had a few reasonable moments to get ready for them to pour out, thus the "fish in a barrel" TV scenario. The only reason the "chaos" happened in the comic was that Hershel didn't expect them to charge and they lost control of the situation, thus no "fish in a barrel" setup.

I really don't see how these differences reflect on the "intelligence level" of the characters in either media version. *shrugs*

I would actually argue that the TV show, even with it's relatively limited plot focus, has filled in a number of gaps in the comic that were not exactly reasonable or well-paced. Let's just say I'm glad I didn't start reading the comic until -after- I'd seen the TV show and leave it at that.

And as Furio said I strongly doubt that the "confrontation" between Hershel and Rick is now officially over.
I strongly suspect that the next episode will have quite a few "ball-breaking" scenes between them.

I'm not sure how fast a person reads the comic has much to do with the "pacing" of the story as presented. If the comic only gives you a few panels of text to cover something that needs to be further covered for better dramatic effect then it doesn't really matter how fast a person reads.

I'm by no means trying to argue that the TV show is the unqualified "better" version of the story. But I do believe it's been better able to handle many of the "dynamics" of the plot by being able to delve into some parts of the story that the comic merely glanced over. Again I favor the idea that the two formats can serve as complementary to each other. I simply prefer to enjoy the strengths they both bring to the table.

I'm pretty sure TV Hershel has also vaguely mentioned some excuse along the lines of "not enough resources" but that was as weak a point as it was in the comics considering they've got a huge farm with which to grow food and they could always scavenge for supplies in the nearby towns.

Basically my main problem with the comic is that many of the "critical dramatic points" are sped through with just a few pages or even just a few panels to cover them. While it's certainly true the comic has managed to present more "story" than the TV show has it conversely doesn't really adequately cover most of it. Compared to the TV show it's just a blinding blur of story points with very little depth.

I could entertain the idea the the TV show has the opposite problem: it sticks to relatively few plot points and cover them far too much. But this is why I like both formats so far because they each have a different focus on the story that makes up for the other's weaknesses.

I would be more worried about these kinds of concerns if the guys behind the comic had absolutely no involvement with the TV show. But because people like Robert Kirkman are involved at least to some degree and they have already plainly stated that the comic will -not- serve as strict canon to the TV show it's hard for me to really be that upset with the deviations.

I understand not liking the direction the TV show is heading in. But as far as an "TV adaptation" goes we really aren't ever going to get anything closer. *shrugs*

I'll grant you that Sophia coming outside as the last lone zombie so they could all make sure to pay extra close attention to her was a little bit "staged" as far as the writing of the show went. It might have been interesting if she just charged out during the general frenzy of the breakout and things were so chaotic that they didn't even realize she was among them until the end.

But still she served as the lightning rod to provide clear laser-like focus to all the arguing and bickering all the people we going on about whether it was the question of whether "zombies are people too" or whether they should stay or leave the farm. None of that mattered anymore when they were faced with the stark unavoidable reality of the ZA embodied in that one little girl. She served as a turning point in the story, the point when any vague hope that there would be any chance that things would ever "get back to normal" were finally crushed.

That's what made the moment so powerful -despite- the slightly ham-fisted writing.

Like I said if it's revealed in the show that Daryl was willingly just as much of a "racist misogynistic redneck" as Merle was then yes I can agree with the whole idea that he's trying to "atone" for his past sins. But so far the evidence we've seen (like Dark One just implied) points more towards someone who at best "played along" with his brother to make him happy but perhaps never felt those negative ideas as his own. He's never had a problem with T-Dog and even risked himself to save T-Dog back at the beginning of the season.

I think the whole point of Daryl as a character was to be the "misunderstood redneck". You look at him once and you automatically ASSUME he's -just- a racist redneck like his brother was but what we've seen throughout this season is that Daryl on his own is much more sophisticated in his own way than that.

I suspect that's part of why he's become such a fan-favorite amongst the audience of this show.

I guess we could learn that Daryl was a genuinely bad guy who's trying to make amends.

But it really seems more like he might have just been under Merle's thumb and maybe never had a chance (pre-ZA) to make his own decisions or be his own man. Sure the circumstances for the rest of the world are pretty bad in light of the zombies. But in Daryl's case it's probably been a good chance for him to start over and make a name for himself that has nothing to do with being someone's little brother.

They even literally had that talk in the woods a few episodes ago where Rick admitted that he "vicariously lived" through all of Shane's dates and shenanigans he had during high school. It's as if Shane represents everything Rick would do if he didn't have a strongly developed sense of morality and honor. As you imply Shane is indirectly serving as the TV version of Rick's comicbook thought-bubbles.

I'm finding the way the TV show has handled how Rick and Shane view the idea of "leadership" to be very interesting. It's not just a simple question of one being totally right and the other being totally wrong - both men are struggling with the grey area of morality versus the primal caveman instinct for survival.

In a very real sense both of them are the two sides of the same coin. Shane has been kind of the "dark" version of Rick all along. It's almost like that classic Star Trek episode where Kirk was literally split into two separate men by the transporter beam, one having the "good" qualities of Kirk and the other having the "evil" qualities.

Obviously there's no 23th century technology involved in the Walking Dead, but it'll be cool to see how they deal with each other's opposing views. Obviously the whole "Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere" styled love triangle will generate on-going drama as well.

I think the problem both the comic and TV show has had is that neither of them has really given us a clear-cut LOGICAL reason why Hershel wanted Rick's group to leave other than he just arbitrarily wanted them to. Yes it's his farm and he can make the rules, but still after Rick made the obvious good case that the two groups could work together better than apart Hershel still couldn't come up with a good counter-argument to that.

I think we're just suppose to believe that Hershel's full commitment to his delusional idea that "zombies are people too" is suppose to adequately explain every motivation he has as a character and it's just hard, as the audience, to buy that point of view. *shrugs*

The "magic" of Hollywood makes many shorter guys look taller on screen.
Tom Cruise is the classic example of that.

I've now read enough of The Walking Dead comic to see the major differences between it and the TV show.
So far I don't have a problem with it because I'm liking both for different reasons.

Yes you can rightly say the TV show is "based" on the comic but the two stories are clearly becoming their own stand-alone retellings of the same overall story. A recent big example of this kind of thing working really well is HBO's True Blood which is based on the Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels. After four seasons of TV shows the TV "version" of that story is now very different from the original novel version. But it works because even though they are different they both have strengths and weaknesses that complement each other. In fact in interviews Charlaine Harris has mentioned that she likes all the new things the HBO TV show has done because it makes the story a surprise even to her.

I don't have any problem that The Walking Dead TV show and comic are starting to diverge more and more. I'm already finding things about both versions that I like better than the way the other version handled things. And besides if by some miracle the TV show was able to be an exact clone of the comic then anyone who's read the comic would be completely bored because there would be nothing new to see.

Oh I would completely agree that "relations" between Hershel's group and Rick's group are completely (forgive the pun) shot at this point regardless. We'll have to see how they all pick up the pieces after this. I think Hershel's ignorance of Sophia being in the barn makes this scenario that much more tragic because not only was his "delusion" that these people are just sick totally crushed but his bad decision to keep them in the barn led to further unnecessary angst/suffering over Sophia.

This is an example of how the TV show has been able to handle a dramatic situation better than the comic. In the comic this scene was almost glossed over in a page or two and there was practically no "backlash" from it at all. Rick and company barely reacted to it at all. They didn't really get mad at Hershel at all over it almost like it was perfectly "normal" for a random farmer to have a few zombies in his barn. It was barely a speedbump in the story. I think the TV show will give this situation the gravitas it deserves and use it as a major turning point in the story.

Well the whole "Sophia was in the barn all along" scenario was a pretty powerful twist to the story despite the comic canon. They may have not done much with her character on the TV show up until that point but she certainly provided a catalyst for a major character-defining climax.

Even as Rick was doing what needed to be done the thought jumped into my head, "Wait a minute - wouldn't Hershel have known about a new little girl being recently added to the barn and realized that might have been Sophia?" That question was really going to bother me if I had to wait until February for an answer.

But thankfully I watched The Talking Dead, the interview show AMC has been showing after each new episode of The Walking Dead, and it explained this point perfectly. During that show Kirkman himself confirmed that Otis was in fact the one who caught Sophia, put her in the barn, and never had the chance to mention it because Shane capped him before the topic ever came up. Now one could still argue that the chicken-feeders would have seen the "new girl" in the barn and put two and two together. But it's at least conceivable that zombie-Sophia might have simply stayed out of sight while they quickly tossed chickens into the barn. Basically it was fairly believable that Sophia could've been in the barn pretty much the whole time without anyone realizing it.

Even though the "Where's Sophia?" plotline was dragging on I consider the build up to this finale was well worth the wait.